225 Quotes by Steve Coogan
"Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister."
"If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't."
"I've always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy."
"I don't think I'm kind of universally known. I think in the indie world I'm probably better known than in some mainstream Hollywood terms."
"I don't like comedy that I think is bad comedy, where people are trying to be sick for the sake of it, where there's no intellectual point behind it. I like stuff that's got an underlying point of view."
"I never had any desire to be famous. I find people who do really sad. I genuinely feel sorry for them because there is nothing of substancein their lives. I am happy when I am writing or performing. Not when I sit there being "famous". I like recognition for my work, but not recognition for being "that bloke off the telly". It is genuinely humbling when a woman comes up to me, as someone did recently, to say she wanted to commit suicide after her husband died, and my show cheered her up and made her feel better. That's great."
"I'm a huge fan of Jack Lemmon, he was someone who managed to tread that line between comedy and tragedy and sometimes give very big performances, but they were never over-demonstrative and they were never not based on a kind of real truthful human being."
"When I was a student I was very, very ambitious, completely immersed in my comedy career. I never had that period of reckless hedonism that you should get out of your system in your youth."
"I try to not make safe choices, but I also like to do stuff which is interesting and is sort of exciting in some way and accessible."